1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computer software applications providing for customized access to software applications, and more particularly to subscriber control of the customization on a user-by-user basis. Note that a subscriber is an institutional software customer, such as a company, and a user is an individual (person or piece of hardware) which uses the application supplied by the subscriber. For example, application users might be company employees who use an application in the course of their employment with the subscriber.
2. Description of the Related Art
In some conventional software applications, such as word processing programs, web browsers and market data applications (for receiving current financial information), users can customize aspects of the user interface. For example, a user may be able to customize application display colors, or print format, or data transfer rate of data transfers, or the content of pull down menus and so on.
One advantage of this kind of application is that a sophisticated and disciplined users can optimize their interfaces according to their individualized wants and needs. On the other hand, a disadvantage of these conventional applications is that an unsophisticated or undisciplined user might customize her user interface in a counter-productive way. This is not good for the user or for her associated subscriber.
It is an object of at least some embodiments of the present invention to provide for subscriber control of the user interface for users associated with the subscriber. It is a feature of at least some embodiments of the present invention that a software application defines action items relating to aspects of each user""s access, which action items are configured by the subscriber on a user-by-user basis. It is an advantage of at least some embodiments of the present invention that users are allowed access to aspects of the user interface on an individualized basis according to subscriber""s configuration decisions.
According to the present invention, a method of using a software application generally includes the steps of providing an application having xe2x80x9caction itemsxe2x80x9d to a subscriber, and having the subscriber configure the xe2x80x9caction itemsxe2x80x9d with xe2x80x9caction item valuesxe2x80x9d on a user-by-user basis (or on the basis of groupings of users).
As the term is used herein, an xe2x80x9caction itemxe2x80x9d is any aspect of the functionality of the software application, except that xe2x80x9caction itemsxe2x80x9d do not include access to data or databases, access to portions of data or databases, ability to modify data or databases, or ability to control action item configuration or data or database modification permission. To illustrate, providing for control of application display colors is an example of an xe2x80x9caction item,xe2x80x9d while access to some specific database which can be provided by the application cannot be considered as an xe2x80x9caction item.xe2x80x9d Other examples of xe2x80x9caction itemsxe2x80x9d will be given throughout this application to help convey the concept of xe2x80x9caction items,xe2x80x9d but these examples are not intended to limit the definition of xe2x80x9caction itemsxe2x80x9d provided in this paragraph.
A physical medium can be coded with a computer software application according to the present invention. Some exemplary physical mediums are floppy disks, hard magnetic disks, optical disks, magnetic tapes, read only memories, random access memories and so on. The coded software application includes application code and configuration code. The application code corresponds to computer instructions for executing the software application, with the application code defining at least one action item. The configuration code corresponds to computer instructions for configuring the computer software application with action item values the users, whereby each user""s access with respect to the action item is determined by the action item value. This way, a subscriber can configure the application for each user by defining the action item values.
It is noted that while the present invention relates to subscriber (institutional software customer) control, and more particularly to subscriber (institutional software customer) control effected by configuring software, this configuration will generally be carried out by an individual or individuals who have been delegated to decide on the subscriber""s configuration strategy and to actually input the desired configuration information into the appropriate computer(s). Therefore, as used herein, the term xe2x80x9csubscriberxe2x80x9d includes these delegated individuals. In some embodiments of the present invention, the delegated individuals may include third party individuals, user individuals, or individuals affiliated with the software manufacturer.